IN LATE January Tsar Nicholas II posted a status update from his residence near Petrograd: “The frost got stronger again. I didn’t stroll for long.” Vladimir Lenin, in exile in Zurich, wrote on a friend’s wall, musing on war and pacifism. Anna Akhmatova posted her latest verses. Leon Trotsky checked in from New York, where, he writes, “the aesthetic theory of cubism rules on the streets, and the moral philosophy of the dollar in the hearts”.
As the centenary of Russia’s revolutions approaches, tens of thousands of Russians have been consuming these bits of the past through Project 1917, an “edutainment” initiative that recreates the fateful year in the form of a social network. Posts draw from historical archives, letters and diaries. Users can access a stand-alone site or subscribe to updates on Facebook and VKontakte, the Russian equivalent; an English-language version will launch this month. The project is the brainchild of Mikhail Zygar, the former head of Dozhd (“Rain”), a liberal television network.
The network immerses its users in the daily minutiae of the period. A table displays “current” exchange...Continue reading
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